Vitalism Re-Visited
From Percy Bysshe Shelley to Contemporary Eco-Poetics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8135091 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Asunción López-Varela Azcárate (0000-0003-1616-5830, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 163 |
| Publication date | 2026-01-30 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel17020163 |
| OpenAlex | W7126263136 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 27 |
This paper reconfigures the theme of divine encounters in the literature by examining the intersection of pantheism, vitalism, and ecological imagination, with a particular focus on Percy Bysshe Shelley. Far from depicting the divine as transcendent, Shelley envisions it as an immanent force permeating nature, matter, and life itself. In poems such as “Queen Mab”, “Mont Blanc”, “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”, “Ode to the West Wind”, or “The Cloud” Shelley translates vitalist science into poetic vision, challenging orthodox religious beliefs and contemplating the divine as inherent in natural processes. The study also situates Shelley’s thought within a broader genealogy that extends through John Ruskin’s vitalist aesthetics, Henri Bergson’s élan vital, and into contemporary posthumanist philosophy, neomaterialism and ecocriticism, along with scholars who have contributed to reviving and transforming vitalist traditions, reframing human-nonhuman relations in the Anthropocene. The paper shows the importance of the Romantic period in the development of vitalist approaches in various fields of knowledge, anticipating ecological concerns. The study is framed as a genealogical and epistemological problem attempting to articulate connections while situating poetic practice as a privileged site where vitalism is negotiated
Period (music · Poetry · Romance · Romanticism · Theme (computing · Vitalism · Western thought · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Science Education and Perceptions · Scientific Innovation and Industrial Efficiency
Shelley and Vitality
The presocratic philosophers a critical history with a selection of texts
The shallow and the deep, long‐range ecology movement. A summary∗
Ecopoetic Noticing
Air and atmosphere studies
Material Ecocriticism
The Oxford Handbook of Ecocriticism
Reclaiming Romanticism
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) and Nature's Divine Participation
Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment
The Romantic Conception of Life
| Highly cited | No |
|---|